AMD Installation Center/ Auto Metal Direct

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

Nearing the finish line.

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

Last week in June I ask Craig to send me the final bill as he wanted the final payment and for it to clear before I picked up the car. This was a significant amount of money, so I could completely understand. Plus I thought the upfront cash outlay was small by comparison. This was another one of those moments were you have to have all your paperwork, emails, spreadsheets and notes ready to go and know yourself what you expect the total to me. Man, I was dreading some last minute fiasco where the bill skyrockets. But that did not happen, Craig was not only right on the money, but I could tell he also worked to ensure costs did not jump over the quote. Sure there were a few items here or there or additions but that has to be expected with this amount of work. IT can also be extremely scary. This is a lot of money and money does not grow on trees. It is nice to find a reputable shop that you can trust. With that hurdle out of the way, I sent a registered check to AMD Installation Center for the remainder of his part and also a check for parts to Classic Muscle Metal, another business there, that handles the selling of the sheet metal part of the job.

July 4Th week, I rolled down to the AMD Installation Center with my good friend and brother and open trailer in tow. I was worried about the weather as within a day or two the reports went from it will be sunny and 80 degrees to rain all day. Nothing I could do at that point as I had already looked in vain for an enclosed trailer to rent and they are practically non existent around here. So I just prepared for the worst and hoped that would work out.

Rather than do a 24hr crash and burn bonsai run there and back like I had been doing previously, we left a day early. I did not want to screw the car up pushing it to get done in a day. We showed up bright and early and found the car still getting some last minute tweaks. I had spoken to the team a couple days earlier about anything needed for me to bring down there. They advised everything was in with the parts I had dropped of initial (thank you bag and tag) with the exception for the hood striker. I found it still on the prior hood, so I blasted and primed it and brought it with me. Wesley was in charge of my build and helped me get the striker on. He is the same guy who did the Graveyard Carz Phantom Cuda build. He was happy to show me around the car and over it with me. I had already given my good friend and brother instructions on what to do when we got there. My brother's job was to go around and photo everything and my friend's job was as my quality control guy. He can be real picky about stuff and we had a couple areas we specifically wanted to look at further because the last set of photos I received were still in the in-progress stage. So as Wesley walked me around these two went about their assigned tasks. The guys there did not mind and even walked us around both buildings. My brother got lots of great photos and my buddy gave all the areas of the car we discussed a thumbs up. Wesley and I discussed the car and quality of work and I was very impressed. Oh, man was I relieved. I had made it a point to bring a small gift as a token of thanks for the hard work they did. I bottle of bourbon made near my hometown. I presented it to Wesley and he was grateful.

Craig wasn't there initially as I believe he may have been out at a doctor's appointment and I did not specify an exact time I would be there. However, when we arrived they made it a point to give him a call and he arrived a little while later to personally make sure I was happy with the job and to see us off. Now that is personal attention. We pushed the car out of the shop and loaded it onto the open car trailer and in the process almost ran over one of the workers. check out my earlier video you can almost see it. Disaster avoided, we rolled it up on the trailer and over a tarp I had lain down. Guys in the got right back to worked however, a couple asked me what I was going to do with the tarp. I said I was going to wrap the car up and try to protect it from the rain. The first guy commented the tarp likely would not make it the 10hr drive and the other said I should just leave it uncovered as it is in EPD and primer coating. I'm not sure if the rain would have ruined the car, but I did not want to try to find out. As they got back to the shop, me and my crew went about covering the car with a tarp from the bottom, another tarp from the top, and then double wrapped the whole thing with tape and clear plastic that pallets get wrapped with. It was so much work and literally took hours, but it worked so good. It rain just minutes after we left the shop with the car behind us.

[RUNCHARGER]

Impressive work! Thanks for taking the time to post this. I wouldn't have any second thoughts about taking work there after your detailed post.

[69bronzeT5]

Very cool; they do awesome work. I talk to Bill Crabtree quite a bit. BTW; awesome tow rig! We have an '06 GCSRT8 

[Brads70]

What a cool process/experience! The closest we guy come to giving birth! LOL
Thanks for all the pictures! Cool to see it brought back to life! 

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

So here are my final thoughts on this process: the AMD Installation Center has a great rep in the Mopar community for a good reason. they provide you an online tool to create your own estimate and get an idea upfront as to the costs. This whole process started because I had two project cars that had been sitting forever without much forward movement. A buddy mentioned the market for 70 Dodge Chargers was heating up and encouraged me to part with one car to move the 70 convertible ahead. I agreed to put it up for sale with a lofty price and let the market decide. It sold in 30mins for full price.

Once it sold I made a plan to sell off the parts I had acquired overs the years for it and started looking at ways to fix the Challenger. Late one nite I went to the AMD Installation Center's website and did a quick down and dirty estimate on my own and I was really surprised at the number. It was roughly $21,000. This was a little more than I expect, but yet still in the realm of possibilities. Shockingly, in my reach if I could successfully sell my parts and make close to what I thought they were worth.

[Cuda Cody]

Smart move!  You are going to love having a done finished car much more then 2 projects.  Can't wait to follow your build all the way to the finish.   

[RUNCHARGER]

I agree: It's hard to let one go however better to have one car that is in reach rather than two unstarted projects with the costs to restore them going up every day.

[69bronzeT5]

with the costs to restore them going up every day.

Don't say that LOL 

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

After getting the online quote, I sent Craig the quote using the online tools and included pictures of the car. He called me the very next day and we discussed the project. He provided me an amended quote and I reviewed it. The new quote was slightly higher than what I came up with as Craig and I added a couple things and it also included blasting an epoxy. So around $22,000 or so, however he would have to reach out to Ken H for convertible specific quarter panels and a header peice as they are not made in the after market.

As mentioned before, the AMD Installation Center does full panel replacement and does not typically do patchwork. This allows them to quickly turn cars around and help ensure the highest quality. However for the customer this adds a significant cost to the project that could otherwise avoided if you were doing it yourself and patching in a new skin.

At this point I got super serious. I went out to the car with the Auto Metal Direct catalog to give me a visual and price comparison. I looked over every peice of sheet metal and noted anything needing replacement. I also used it to check the quote spreadsheet Craig sent. I didn't think it was possibly but I found more stuff I needed to add to the list. I resent and Craig made the adjustments. A couple weeks later I drove down there so Craig could look the car over in person. In my mind I did not want to go over $25,000, but to get a firm final number, I felt we needed to talk in person. Craig looked it over and we agreed on $500 for over all rust repair on the few areas remaining that were not being replaced. This was important to me as I could see where some in the business could get creative billing for that. But Craig was upfront and gave me firm number. This Was over $27,800 or so and included 2 conv quarter panels converted by Ken H and a conv windshield header ($7500 for the 3 of them). This was beyond what I thought was my max budget was, but I was this close to getting the car back together and just decided to go for it. For the sake of simplicity we rounded up to $28,000. We also discussed them hanging the exterior sheet metal and aligning it for an additional cost.

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

Keep in mind during this process and anytime changes are made Craig will send a new spreadsheet. I've attached. I made sure to take plenty of notes and date everything I received. I found it was really helpful and kept us on top of what was going on.

I took the spreadsheets and wrote out the final total, this included the additional parts and labor I added after work started.

[RUNCHARGER]

That's all upfront and figures never lie.

Cody: Hey you're young enough to get them all done. At my age I have to pick my battles!

[anlauto]

Thanks for actually posting exact figures.......Now when I tell my customers that metal work is expensive....maybe they'll understand if they read your informative thread 

[Chaos-N-Mayhem]

There wasn't much in the way surprises working with Craig. He was very transparent and easy to work with. But always I would recommend doing your own due diligence.

My total cost was about $32,000. I get a lot of folks would say that is a huge amount and I would not disagree with them. The car needed a serious amount of work and is one step closer to being back and on the road. After I brought the car home I had the pleasure to chat with Alan Galant as we had previously discussed sharing cost comparisons on a Challenger convertible in similiar condition he had recently finished. I found the costs very close and the main difference being the $7500 for the convertible parts sourced from Ken H. However, I'll let Alan chime in if he wants add more detail on his end.

So if you're in need of repair work for your beloved Mopar, I don't think you can go wrong with the AMD Installation Center. As well, if you are up north give Alan a call. His work is well known and he has a great rep in the biz.
Hope the write up is helpful to anyone considering to have work done even if you don't go this route you can at least have something to compare it to with pics and spreadsheets.

[anlauto]

I think the only main difference between an "installation center" and the type of metal work my guy(s) does would be the ability to fabricate just about anything. I feel my guys could have easily fabricated patches to save areas like the windshield header  or door posts, etc...without simply replacing the entire panel, and they can certainly convert the quarter panels "in house" to save a ton of money.

In some cases that does save money, but in other areas the fabrication costs more money, so you're no further ahead.

Five to ten years ago my guy(s) would do a lot more fabrication, patching quarters or floors, but with the introduction of the OE quality panels from AMD, we find it much more efficient, and a much cleaner job by replacing the whole panels at the factory seams.

I think you did very well with Craig, and our other member @Car-nutt is probably very glad to hear of your experience, because his AAR is there now.